happy new year breakfast.

xmas came early, on the twenty-second, with the arrival of nellie, who in a fit of human endurance, rode the terrible air canada route between new york and sydney via vancouver and honolulu. as if that weren’t enough, she arrived bearing gifts: the new satrapi (which in its original french is already the old satrapi), a just-read-on-the-plane sedaris, the bumper hardcover compendium of american elf (which is so bumper that its 500 pages have wrenched themselves from the binding), and an assortment of condiments including beets and cherry jam (according to the flowery italian label, 170% fruit content).

with the baby and the copious end-of-year meat consumption worked into the routine, everything fell into place. post-christmas we took it as far as the rock, on a road trip into those parts of the brown country where it’s normal for a day to be 36°. squatting in the boy’s grandmother’s retirement flat, we kickstarted each morning with a breakfast made up of any combination of bacon and sausage and egg and beans and white toast, or all at once. and then ended each day at the old family home with the kitchen table a smorgasbord of barnyard meats and an assortment of coleslaws.

along the way was young, cherry capital of australia, where the best meal was not the cherry pie — pastry all sodden and doughy — in the tearoom of a reknowned jam factory, but the $7.95 roast lamb special at the young services club, with help-yourself, all-you-can-eat hot vegetable and salad bar; the lamb was moist, tender and gravied, the hot vegetables included corn on the cob, and one of the salads was whole pickled beetroot. nor did the town yield the best cherries of the trip; these came from a fruitshop in a mall in wagga wagga, and for a whole cent cheaper per kilo.

incidentally, the cheesymite scrolls at the wagga baker’s delight are at least twice the size of the ones from the surry hills bakers delight, and the custard scrolls much more custardy. which makes one think that wagga is where it all happens. whoulda thunk?